Journey Under the Lilac Clouds
by Les Mots de Meaux
Summary: If she is order, then he is disorder. A glimpse into a certain blonde-haired girl's first foray into Wonderland.


Disclaimer: I do not own Alice in Wonderland or any of the mentioned characters, nor am I Lewis Carroll.

The girl is in a blue frock and white stockings that are slightly torn at the knees. Her hair is blonde, yellow as the stars and pulled back fast with a silk ribbon. Her arms swing at her sides, for she is safe and need not be on guard. For she is safe, safe, safe, with the man beside her.

The man beside her is unkempt, white hair wildly tumbling from under his hat. If she is order, he is disorder. He is young and carefree, just as he is old and wise. His coat is old, yet repaired and mended by his own capable hands. His hands are covered in lavender gloves for now, but underneath the silk they are pale and stained with many colors of ink. His outfit is carefully chosen, each color of a rainbow represented upon his person. His hat, dazzling in its array of hues, sits upon his snowy hair. He walks beside the girl, arms crossed across his chest.

"What is this place? It's…like nothing I've ever seen before," the girl finally speaks, raising her head to look at him.

"Really? Is it so outlandish? What, then, child, would I say of yours?" he murmurs, casting his emerald eyes down at her.

"I suppose you would find it…strange. They would think you quite an oddity there." She slows, turning to regard him with calculating eyes. "Yes. You're very different from all of them."

"Them?" he questions. "I'd say I'm different. Different's a good thing, you know."

"They wouldn't consider you respectable."

"What is the importance of that, child?" he asks, picking up the pace again. She runs to keep up with his mercurial decision.

"Well, you are very strange, I must say." She turns her head back to gaze upon the world, the forest that she is in.

"Environment, child, it's all about environment." He follows her gaze, as if he is the newcomer, and not her. "That's really all that counts."

"Well, what is that supposed to mean?"

"Where you grow up shapes who you are. Look at me, for example. I grew up here, and I can assure that I am perfectly normal. As normal as that blasted cat, at the very least." He grimaces, thinking of the violet, ever-changing feline. "Which isn't saying much, really."

"That, well, seems to all depend on a matter of perspective."

"Matter – hatter, what, my dear, is the matter with your dear friend the Hatter?" he interrupts, grinning wildly down at her.

"That is very rude of you, sir. Anyway, no one that is sane –"

"Sane! Why, what an insult!" he jerks back in indignation, turning from her.

She sighs, brushing her hair back from where it had crept to her shoulder. "That was not an insult. I was not talking about you. I was talking about my family, the British…"

"_British_ is such an odd word," he mumbles, half in retaliation for the hurt she had unknowingly caused and had failed to repair.

"What are your people called, then?"

"Wonderlanders."

"Then I could very well say the same. _Wonderlanders _is such an odd word."

"Thank you, my dear small friend. What a charming child you can be."

"Has anyone ever told you that you are different to the point of being _insane_?" she nearly shouts, angry and impatient with the white-haired man walking beside her.

"Different is good! Different sets you apart from the common folk; it gives you a reason for anything, everything, and nothing. Yes, different is good, better than un-different! Don't they teach that to you children these days?" He smiles at her, lightheartedly shoving her shoulder.

She shoves back, not so lightly. "No, they certainly do not! They teach us manners, and how to be good representations of our country!" She glowers at him, perhaps indicating that he was neither well-mannered nor a particularly good example of what the citizens of Wonderland were like. "We are taught, sir, to be ideal citizens."

"Ideal? Nothing can really be ideal in such a time! Ideal is a made-believe game, devised by the queens and kings and teachers and inspectors and all of those law-abiding people! Nothing is ideal. Unless, of course, you are talking about me."

"Shut up."

"Oh, now, dear child! No profanity from Miss 'ideal citizen'!" He grinned, almost manically. "Are you not supposed to be this crazy idea of an ideal citizen?"

"Just stop it, sir. You vex me." She stopped walking altogether, face getting red with anger.

"Vex, hex, it is all the same. I put a hex on you. Is that why I vex you? Double, double…trouble, toil…"

"You have gotten the words confused, and please! Just stop it!"

"As you command, so it is to be my duty." He bowed to her, sweeping his hat from his head. She sighed in exasperation.

"I am not royalty, and you need not act as such." He stood to his full height, replacing his silk-and-velvet hat back upon his head.

"You have become quite a confusing little girl. First you told me to shut up, in all your regal glory. Normal citizens do not just order normal citizens around. Are you so ideal, now?" he taunted.

She closed her eyes, trying to think of a good retaliation. "Well, that's good, then. Neither of us, as you have pointed out, are all that normal."

"You seem altogether perfectly normal to me, dear one. You have got all the required parts, after all. You have a good-sized head," he tapped her head, brushing her hair from her forehead. She remained still, wary of his sudden, capricious movements. "You've got the right number of fingers, and I will assume the same goes for your toes." He took her small, pale hand in his purple-gloved one, examining it with careful eyes. "You seem normal to me."

"Say what you wish, but others shall certainly decide differently." She jerked her hand from his.

"_Say what you like_ and _like what you say_ are quite different phrases."

"Fine, fine, fine! Enough of this meaningless, ill-mannered nonsense!"

"Nonsense, some-sense, much-sense, perfect-sense." He giggled at his own puns, a violet-gloved hand pressed to his heaving chest.

"Just shut it! You are very annoying!"

"Oh, that hurt, dear. It hurt _bad_."

"I just…I…where on earth are we going, anyway?" She looked around, as if searching for a sign of means of directional aid.

"There's no telling where we're going." He laughed at her blind confusion. "Where, oh where…we're going…HERE!" he shouted to her, to the sky, to the birds in the treetops.

"Here?" she questioned. "But if we're going, how can we already be here?"

"Well, we have quite stopped walking. We aren't exactly going anywhere at the precise moment, anyway. We are…here."

"No, no. I meant…in the grand sense."

"Grand-sense, that's a new one for the book!" He pulled a ratty old journal from his coat and began scribbling furiously upon a blank page. "Grand-sense, petit-sense, French-sense," he murmured.

"You are so extremely annoying, sir. Where are we headed to, when we start walking once more?"

He slid the notebook back into his coat pocket. "I suppose…well, it _is _almost brillig. We could indeed head for the table. I'm sure good Hare's got something…"

"No. No more tea for you. You're quite…off, as it is."

"Off, on, off, on. Time's on, time's off. It's time to go!" He set off at record-speed, dashing through the forest.

"Sir! Wait, please, sir!" she cried, chasing after him.

She could hear his echoing voice through the woods, bouncing off the trees. "We're late, we're so terribly late! 'Tis almost brillig!"

At once, she realized that a certain old adage was true: the fun is not in the destination, but in the very journey itself.


End file.
